414 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



building, or material for the manufacture of wooden ware, 

 would be entitled to the grateful regard of his country. The 

 slow growth of forest trees, and the many years required to 

 bring them to maturity, are, perhaps, reasons why so little at- 

 tention has been paid to this department of agriculture. Some 

 persons are sadly .afflicted with the fear that they may do some- 

 thing for posterity, and seem to think nothing worth their care 

 that does not afford immediate profit or enjoyment. It would 

 be well for all such persons to remember the admonition, which 

 the Laird of Dumbiedikes, on his death-bed, gave to his son 

 and heir : " Jock," said the conscience-stricken sinner, " when 

 ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree ; 

 it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping. My father tauld 

 me sae, forty years sin', but I ne'er fand time to mind him." 

 The application of the advice, and the warning conveyed in 

 the old man's regret that he had. never found time to mind it, 

 is apparent. How many barren acres now meet the eye, where 

 orchards might be laden with fruit. How many rows of oak, 

 ash and maple, might adorn the sides of roads, sweetening and 

 purifying the atmosphere, and affording a refreshing shade to 

 the traveler, a comfortable resting place for cattle, a repose for 

 the laborer, or a play-ground for children, where there is now 

 nothing but weeds or briers, a harbor for snakes, and other rep- 

 tiles, and yielding a harvest of seeds to be scattered over the ad- 

 joining fields, and reproduced, some thirty, some sixty, and 

 some a hundred fold. The young should always look forward 

 to the time, when every hour of past labor will be repaid with 

 days of comparative ease and gratification ; and the old should 

 reflect that life may be lengthened to enjoy the reward of all 

 that their hands find to do. 



A friend once related to me an anecdote of an old farmer, 

 who had lived over seventy years on Cape Cod, and was about 

 selling his farm and purchasing a tract of wild land in one of 

 the roughest regions of Vermont. One of his neighbors, as- 

 tonished at what he thought the old man's folly, asked him the 

 reason of his singular movement. " Why, (said he) I have 

 eaten rye bread and Indian johnny-cake, long enough, and I in- 

 tend to go where I can raise wheat." His neighbor said, in a 



